So I've been "reading" a book, and by reading I mean skimming to get to one or two specific parts, and it's not my favorite. There's the religious language and just comes from a place that's kind of unappealing to me (for the most part, not completely). And it's not that those things are bad, it's just not my cup of tea. A lot of people would really enjoy it. Anyway, they did make an argument that I found really interesting.
They are reflecting upon some of the formulations of Christian doctrine, specifically whether Christ was in essence the same as God or in substance the same as God. While they're doing this they argue that the debate wasn't really about doctrine. Underneath the doctrine question was really a quest for power. You have two factions levying for power. Who will history deem right? Who will win and be able to lead this thing? The doctrine question was the symbol of this power struggle. Whoever won this battle won the war.
Now, this may be an oversimplification, and I'm sure each side had a lot invested theologically. But, I also know that usually things are rarely about what they seem to be on the surface. This is always about that. So, it makes me wonder if it's the same today. Are the factions within the Jesus faith really about the differences in doctrine, or are they really about power and the future? We look on these ancient debates and go, who cares, that's stupid to argue about, why are they even concerned about this? And I wonder if people will say the same about the "big" debates we have now. "Free will or predestination, that was stupid why were they arguing about that? Oh that was really about these different sides levying for power or self-justification, or fear that they might be wrong."
Friday, May 28, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Beliefs and Relationship
Sam is potty training. Therefore I read him a book, Everybody Poops, I asked him some questions about it which he got right, and I declared him potty trained. That is ff course until he pooped his pants. And in that moment I had a brilliant flash of insight, discovering something long forgotten that no one has knowing in 500 years, knowing about pooping in a potty and actually being trained to use the potty are completely different things. Donald Miller had a blog post yesterday in which this was a bit of the point.
Donald Miller created a post about right theology versus relationship. His basic argument from my understanding is that he wanted to show how right beliefs about God are different from a relationship with God - his post can be found at http://donmilleris.com. Another blogger came across the post and crafted a well reasoned argument for a more holistic understanding of the word theology, that given the meaning of the word theology it should include relationship as opposed to being place in opposition against it, as merely intellectual exploits concerning God- that post can be found at http://agreatercourage.blogspot.com.
In my opinion it appears that maybe Miller stumbled upon a matter of personal importance to agreatcourage who may or may not have inadvertently taken some angst on the subject out on Miller. I know neither of the individuals personally therefore I have no right to really take a side on the subject. Unfortunately some people have been offended and hurt in the process. I don't bring this up to "stir the pot." I hate that people have been hurt and hope that everyone can come to some kind of healing and reconciliation.
Actually I do this because I think both a of these people are extremely intelligent and articulate, much more so than myself. Both posts have great points at their core and I want to make those available for anyone who would like read them. Blog posts are not books, and I try to receive them in the fashion I create them, as not fully formed thesis on a topic, but a means of exploring with those interested ideas or concepts I'm thinking about and/or wrestling through at any given time. I hope for them to challenge, shed a little light, start a discussion, or beg a question. For me, a post should be the first step of a dialogue and our response should be that of questions. - Is this what you mean here? Am I reading this correctly there? What about this issue that relates to that? I would like to stay out of the stirred pot, therefore I'm addressing neither with my questions and thoughts, but I would love for anyone who would like to begin a discussion about a related matter to read the two articles then comment on this post about the relationship between beliefs and relationship.
I really like Miller's basic point. Belief is different than relationship, right belief does not equal having a tight relationship with God. We can look at scriptural texts and find that obvious (James 2:19). Miller uses two metaphors, one being that of marriage. He talks about how knowing information about your spouse is not the same as knowing your spouse. This is an issue I've been fascinated with recently with some great conversations about the impact of social networking sites (facebook, myspace, etc.) and their impact on relationships as well as some discussions concerning our celebrity worship culture where we feel like we know people because all the media/"news" outlets tell us everything about them. But, intimacy and information are not the same thing, we don't really know them.
The second metaphor is that of theology being like guard rails, they're not the point, but they take you to the point. In other words, my understanding of what he's saying is that believing the right stuff isn't the point. Believing the right stuff helps you get toward a deeper relationship with God, which is the point. All metaphors fall short, but for me this is the one that I have trouble with. I both agree and disagree with this simultaneously.
According to Isaiah (55:9) we are all heretics. God is beyond us. We have an experience of the Divine that is beyond anything we can comprehend. In a way experiencing God short circuits our brains. God is so imminent that we experience God as transcendent. So we're left trying to figure out what to do with something that's beyond what we can comprehend. On top of this we're left using words, which in and of themselves are metaphors, and this leaves us talking about things that words can't explain (for more on this check out Peter Rollin's How (Not) to Speak of God). We talk about God being love and use words like Trinity, yet we also know that God's love is really beyond any kind of love we could ever imagine (and good luck trying to wrap your mind around the concept of the Trinity). So, in our attempts to understand the incomprehensible we create beliefs. Much of the way we formulate our beliefs is determined by our context, a Pentecostal would probably describe the same experience very differently than a Roman Catholic. We have an experience of God's love, but words like love don't really describe it. It's more than anything you've ever experienced. However, it's only in exploring those beliefs and finding the places where our beliefs no longer work that we can continue to move forward. It is when we think we have all the right answers, we've got it all figured out that we're truly in trouble. Because we stop searching; we stop exploring.
I would say that beliefs are more like signs or ikons. They are representations that point toward a larger reality. They are things we have to use to guide us, that we can't navigate without, and yet we have to go further, we have to move beyond them toward that to which they point us. The sign of the beach is not the beach, but it points us toward the real beach. Without the sign we might go the wrong direction, so it guides us, yet we don't park under the beach sign and go, "man how great is this."
Which of course begs a couple questions. If reading a book on pooping doesn't make one potty trained, then why would affirming certain doctrines or beliefs make one in right relationship with God, a follower of Jesus, a Christian, or whatever language you want to use to speak about it? And, how can we continue to move churches from a place of telling us what to believe toward a place of encountering God, helping make sense of that encounter, and pointing people forward (a question in which there are a million flaws, please forgive)? And, if Jesus' primary command is to love, how do we continue to move churches more and more toward being places for training people how to love in the ways of Jesus?
Donald Miller created a post about right theology versus relationship. His basic argument from my understanding is that he wanted to show how right beliefs about God are different from a relationship with God - his post can be found at http://donmilleris.com. Another blogger came across the post and crafted a well reasoned argument for a more holistic understanding of the word theology, that given the meaning of the word theology it should include relationship as opposed to being place in opposition against it, as merely intellectual exploits concerning God- that post can be found at http://agreatercourage.blogspot.com.
In my opinion it appears that maybe Miller stumbled upon a matter of personal importance to agreatcourage who may or may not have inadvertently taken some angst on the subject out on Miller. I know neither of the individuals personally therefore I have no right to really take a side on the subject. Unfortunately some people have been offended and hurt in the process. I don't bring this up to "stir the pot." I hate that people have been hurt and hope that everyone can come to some kind of healing and reconciliation.
Actually I do this because I think both a of these people are extremely intelligent and articulate, much more so than myself. Both posts have great points at their core and I want to make those available for anyone who would like read them. Blog posts are not books, and I try to receive them in the fashion I create them, as not fully formed thesis on a topic, but a means of exploring with those interested ideas or concepts I'm thinking about and/or wrestling through at any given time. I hope for them to challenge, shed a little light, start a discussion, or beg a question. For me, a post should be the first step of a dialogue and our response should be that of questions. - Is this what you mean here? Am I reading this correctly there? What about this issue that relates to that? I would like to stay out of the stirred pot, therefore I'm addressing neither with my questions and thoughts, but I would love for anyone who would like to begin a discussion about a related matter to read the two articles then comment on this post about the relationship between beliefs and relationship.
I really like Miller's basic point. Belief is different than relationship, right belief does not equal having a tight relationship with God. We can look at scriptural texts and find that obvious (James 2:19). Miller uses two metaphors, one being that of marriage. He talks about how knowing information about your spouse is not the same as knowing your spouse. This is an issue I've been fascinated with recently with some great conversations about the impact of social networking sites (facebook, myspace, etc.) and their impact on relationships as well as some discussions concerning our celebrity worship culture where we feel like we know people because all the media/"news" outlets tell us everything about them. But, intimacy and information are not the same thing, we don't really know them.
The second metaphor is that of theology being like guard rails, they're not the point, but they take you to the point. In other words, my understanding of what he's saying is that believing the right stuff isn't the point. Believing the right stuff helps you get toward a deeper relationship with God, which is the point. All metaphors fall short, but for me this is the one that I have trouble with. I both agree and disagree with this simultaneously.
According to Isaiah (55:9) we are all heretics. God is beyond us. We have an experience of the Divine that is beyond anything we can comprehend. In a way experiencing God short circuits our brains. God is so imminent that we experience God as transcendent. So we're left trying to figure out what to do with something that's beyond what we can comprehend. On top of this we're left using words, which in and of themselves are metaphors, and this leaves us talking about things that words can't explain (for more on this check out Peter Rollin's How (Not) to Speak of God). We talk about God being love and use words like Trinity, yet we also know that God's love is really beyond any kind of love we could ever imagine (and good luck trying to wrap your mind around the concept of the Trinity). So, in our attempts to understand the incomprehensible we create beliefs. Much of the way we formulate our beliefs is determined by our context, a Pentecostal would probably describe the same experience very differently than a Roman Catholic. We have an experience of God's love, but words like love don't really describe it. It's more than anything you've ever experienced. However, it's only in exploring those beliefs and finding the places where our beliefs no longer work that we can continue to move forward. It is when we think we have all the right answers, we've got it all figured out that we're truly in trouble. Because we stop searching; we stop exploring.
I would say that beliefs are more like signs or ikons. They are representations that point toward a larger reality. They are things we have to use to guide us, that we can't navigate without, and yet we have to go further, we have to move beyond them toward that to which they point us. The sign of the beach is not the beach, but it points us toward the real beach. Without the sign we might go the wrong direction, so it guides us, yet we don't park under the beach sign and go, "man how great is this."
Which of course begs a couple questions. If reading a book on pooping doesn't make one potty trained, then why would affirming certain doctrines or beliefs make one in right relationship with God, a follower of Jesus, a Christian, or whatever language you want to use to speak about it? And, how can we continue to move churches from a place of telling us what to believe toward a place of encountering God, helping make sense of that encounter, and pointing people forward (a question in which there are a million flaws, please forgive)? And, if Jesus' primary command is to love, how do we continue to move churches more and more toward being places for training people how to love in the ways of Jesus?
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
On Church Plants
When it comes to church leadership conferences there are two major seasons, Fall (Oct/Nov) and Spring (April/May). And it seems like whenever that season arrives familiar conversations around church planting seem to flair up once again. Consequently, I'm always disappointed by the fact that the polarization around the conversation hasn't dissipated.
Just like conservatives and liberals, republicans and democrats, for some reason there is a demonization that tends to go on around church planting. Either church planters are characterized as church destroyers whose only aim in life is to destroy someone else's church or the traditional church is demonized as the ineffective enemy of all things that are truly of Jesus.
I've seen situations that have gone each of those directions. I've seen people who have spitefully and intentionally split churches in order to start their new one. It is ugly and messy and destructive. It's definitely not God honoring. But, I've also seen the other side as well. I've seen established churches bribe, manipulate, and dash people's dreams all because they were defending their established church. In these situations the fact that we should all be working toward the same goal has been lost. Both are looking out for their own private kingdom. This happened in the bible too. When Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead the pharisees decide they have to kill him because everyone might begin to follow him which would be a threat to their little kingdom.
I've also seen deeply dysfunctional established churches that were hell-bent on not being faithful to what a church should be and pastors feeling like the only way to be faithful was to start a new one. I have seen this happen quietly and peacefully and I have seen it happen loud and destructively despite pastors' best efforts to minimize the damage. (The thing that bothers me most is when a pastor is demonized even though it was the established church that actually caused the damage. The opposite happens as well, but then there's a community of people to deal with the issue as opposed to a single person. Always realize there are two sides to every coin and every story.)
However, in meeting countless church planters what I have found is that the spiteful intentional destruction of established churches in order to build a new church, while occurring far too often, is not the norm. Most of these guys have a real heart for God and don't want to see any church damaged. On the flip side there are many churches who welcome new churches to their area, even help them get started with financial assistance and man power.
In the end, we need established churches to reach the people who are being reached. At the same time we need new churches that are doing things differently to help those who aren't being reached by the already existing churches.
I just really hate that we keep falling into the tendency to polarize and demonize. Why can't we just answer Jesus' prayer (John 17:11).
There are five stages to group process forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. This means that in the end, churches split in various ways, shapes, and forms. Either we can embrace that, guide it, and let it be constructive and healthy or we can deny it, fight it, and let it be destructive and messy. There are churches that have begun to recognize this, the first for me was Northpoint in Alpharetta and it is something I have always admired about that church. They realized this tendency to split and so they decided they would break up intentionally. As the Sunday morning auditorium begins to fill they decide to start a new campus so that they can reach more people. It's really a beautiful way to reach more people without the whole thing going down the destructive path of the ugly mess that tends to characterize the church plant conversations that come about twice a year.
In the end, I think we need to realize that the defensiveness or offensiveness from "both sides" really comes from a place of fear, anxiety, or hurt. At the same time, living out of that by demonizing the other only tends to make us feel self-righteous. It doesn't actually make anything better, only worse. There are existing churches and church plants who are doing great things. There are some that are doing great things together. We can choose to be cynical because we know of some instances where things have gone wrong, or we can choose not to judge, we can cling to hope paying attention to the times it's gone right. And in so doing we can celebrate and encourage something beautiful.
Because when it becomes about "my thing versus your thing" then my thing is no longer accomplishing anything.
In the end, I think we need to realize that the defensiveness or offensiveness from "both sides" really comes from a place of fear, anxiety, or hurt. At the same time, living out of that by demonizing the other only tends to make us feel self-righteous. It doesn't actually make anything better, only worse. There are existing churches and church plants who are doing great things. There are some that are doing great things together. We can choose to be cynical because we know of some instances where things have gone wrong, or we can choose not to judge, we can cling to hope paying attention to the times it's gone right. And in so doing we can celebrate and encourage something beautiful.
Because when it becomes about "my thing versus your thing" then my thing is no longer accomplishing anything.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)